You know when small children paint something it is usually a collection of people and items that caught their eye, something without much sense, but it looks kind of flashy. This film is exactly like that: a movie about passion in cooking, a clash of cultures, romance, all in the beautiful French country side and starring Helen Mirren. But the movie has no soul. It doesn't teach anything, it doesn't make the viewer empathize with any of the characters and everything that is happening seems to be cut and paste scenes from successful movies in the past.
I would have called a movie like that average, after all there are a lot of formulaic films that work because their recipe works. If nothing is added to the formula, but the movie still entertains, then it is average. However this film failed in a really bad way to make me feel anything about its main subjects: food and romance. The romance was clumsy and hard to believe and at no time I was inspired by any of the food ideas in the film. And I am a sucker for food movies!
Bottom line: just mixing together functional bits from other films doesn't a movie make. If you pay an actress like Mirren to play in your movie and make the effort to do nice shots of rural France and fresh food and all that, at least write a script yourself. This movie failed miserably to make me feel anything but boredom.
I would have called a movie like that average, after all there are a lot of formulaic films that work because their recipe works. If nothing is added to the formula, but the movie still entertains, then it is average. However this film failed in a really bad way to make me feel anything about its main subjects: food and romance. The romance was clumsy and hard to believe and at no time I was inspired by any of the food ideas in the film. And I am a sucker for food movies!
Bottom line: just mixing together functional bits from other films doesn't a movie make. If you pay an actress like Mirren to play in your movie and make the effort to do nice shots of rural France and fresh food and all that, at least write a script yourself. This movie failed miserably to make me feel anything but boredom.